EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

DEFINITION:

Employee satisfaction is the terminology used to describe whether employees are happy and contented and fulfilling their desires and needs at work. Many measures purport that employee satisfaction is a factor in employee motivation, employee goal achievement, and positive employee morale in the workplace.

Employee satisfaction, while generally a positive in your organization, can also be a downer if mediocre employees stay because they are satisfied with your work environment.

Factors contributing to employee satisfaction include treating employees with respect, providing regular employee recognition, empowering employees, offering above industry-average benefits and compensation, providing employee perks and company activities, and positive management within a success framework of goals, measurements, and expectations.

Employee satisfaction is often measured by anonymous employee satisfaction surveys administered periodically that gauge employee satisfaction in areas such as:

management, understanding of mission and vision, empowerment, teamwork, communication, and Coworker interaction.

The facets of employee satisfaction measured vary from company to company.

A second method used to measure employee satisfaction is meeting with small groups of employees and asking the same questions verbally. Depending on the culture of the company, either method can contribute knowledge about employee satisfaction to managers and employees.

Exit interviews are another way to assess employee satisfaction in that satisfied employees rarely leave companies.

FACTORS EFFECTING EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION: It can include factors as following:1. Organization development factors

Brand of organization in business field and comparison with leading competitor.

Missions and Vision of organization Potential development of organization

2. Policies of compensation and benefits factors Wage and salary Benefits Rewards and penalties

3. Promotions and career development factors Opportunities for promotion. Training program participated or will do. Capacity of career development

4. Work task factors Quantity of task Difficult level of task

5. Relationship with supervisor factors Level of coaching Level of assignment for employee Treatment to employee etc

6. Working conditions and environment factors Tools and equipment working methods Working environment

7. Corporate culture factors Relationship with co-workers

Level of sharing etc8. Competencies, Personalities and Expectations of employee factors

Competencies and personalities of employee are suitable for job? Expectations of employee are suitable for policies of organization?

NEED OF EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION1. Need of employee satisfaction for organization

Enhance employee retention. Increase productivity. Increase customer satisfaction Reduce turnover, recruiting, and training costs Enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty More energetic employees Improve teamwork Higher quality products and/or services due to more competent,

energized employees. 2. Need of employee satisfaction for employee

Employee will believe that the organization will be satisfying in the long run

They will care about the quality of their work. They will create and deliver superior value to the customer Their works are more productive. They are more committed to the organization

HOW TO MAINTAIN EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION To maintain employee satisfaction, two solutions can be used as follows:1. Determining suitable frequency of appraisal

Appraisal frequency should be at least 3 or 6 months / time. This help regularly to review satisfaction trends of employees.

Many organizations only perform appraisal satisfaction of employees 1 time per year, simply by applying the standard management rather than the needs of the organization. This is a very long time because the dissatisfaction of employees can occur at any time.

2. Implementation of feedback program regularly

Satisfaction of employees can not be assessed every month because it is very time-consuming. So implementation of the program has to be done on the response of employees monthly or suddenly when a problem happened.

The feedback of the staff is their comments, attitudes about problems that will occur or has occurred.

The feedback can conduct independent or attached to the assessment of the work monthly.

NINE STEPS TO IMPROVE EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION: Employee satisfaction can be improved by nine steps. They are:

1. Shared mission or vision2. Regular Employee input and feedback programs3. Clearly Defined and Communicated job Expectations4. Regular and Fair Performance Feedback5. Compensation, Benefits and Rewards Programs that are Aligned With

Mission Accomplishment6. Promotion of a Diversified Work Force7. Hiring the Right Employees8. Comprehensive Employee Orientation and Integration Programs9. Strong Commitment to Training and Development Programs

DIFFERENT METHODS USED TO MEASURE EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION: Employee satisfaction can be measured by following methods: 1. Satisfaction Surveys

These surveys are presented in a questionnaire format, can gauge whether employee satisfaction is high or low based on how employees answer the questions.

2. Data Collection

Employers can collect data to evaluate if there seems to be a satisfaction problem in the workplace. Human resource departments typically keep this information in personnel records. They may also use the data to generate a report.

3. Visual Observation

Measuring employee satisfaction is something that can be done by visual observation. If employers wish to see things for themselves, it is a good idea to open the eyes and watch what goes on in the workplace.

EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION INDEX: Employee satisfaction index is a index to measure satisfaction of employee in an organization.How to calculate ESI? There is a five-point scale in the questionnaire or survey from employee responses. They are

• Strongly Agree,• Agree,• Undecided,• Disagree,• Strongly Disagree.

Numbers should be remarked which include strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1).Then, total number of questions with answers against each response is calculated (5, 4, 3, 2, 1).

Identify total point of each response.

Identify total number of questions answered

ESI = (total point / total question) * 100.

Analyze employee satisfaction index

Identifying ESI can be done by company, department, field and then, 80/20 principle or Pateto tool can be used to analyze employee satisfaction.

SOURCES OF EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

Several job elements contribute to employee satisfaction.

They are:1) wage2) Nature of work3) Promotion4) Supervision5) Work group6) Working condition7) Motivation

1) Wage:

Wages play a vital role in influencing job satisfaction. This is based on two reasons.

i) Money is an important instrument in fulfilling ones needs.

ii) Employees often see pay as a reflection of managements concern for them employees want a pay system, which is simple, fair and in line with their expectations. When pay in seen as fair, based on job demands, individuals skill level and community pay standards, satisfaction is likely to result.

2) Nature of work:

Most employees crave intellectual challenges on jobs. They tend to prefer being given opportunities to use their skills and abilities and being offered a variety of talks, freedom and feedback on how well they are doing. These characteristics make jobs mentally challenging jobs that have too little challenge create burden. But too much challenge creates frustration and a

failure, order conditions of moderate challenge, employees, experience, pleasure and satisfaction.

3) Promotions:

Promotional opportunities affect job sati’s faction considerably. The desire for promotion is generally strong among employees as it involves change in job content, pays, responsibilities, independence status and the like and average in his entree service, through changes of promotions are better in the private sector. It is no surprise that the employees take promotion as the ultimate achievement in his carver and when if it is realized he feels extremely satisfied.

4) Supervision:

There is a positive relationship between the quality of supervision and job satisfaction the quantity of supervision and job satisfaction supervision that establish a supportive personal relationship with sub-ordinates and take a employee satisfaction supervisor actions for maintaining job satisfaction.

Create a good physical environment. Transport discounted employees. Change the perception of dissatisfied employee. Maintaining open lines of communication. Display concern of employees. Given ample recognition Allow for participative, management. Conduct morale building programs.

5) Work Group:

The work group does serves as source of job satisfaction to individual and group members with opportunities for inter. It is will known that for many employees work fills the need for social interaction.

The work group is as even stronger source of satisfaction when member have similar attitudes caused less eviction on a day to day basis co-

workers with similar attitudes and values can also provided some confirmation of a person self concept.

“We are ok and you are ok”

6) Working Conditions:

Working conditions that are compatible with employees physical comforts and that facilities doing a good job contribution to job satisfaction, temperature, humidity, ventilation, lighting and nose, hours of works, cleanliness of he work place and adequate tools and equipments are the features which affect job satisfaction.

Benefits of employee Satisfaction:-

1) One benefit of employee satisfaction survey is that the give management and indication of general levels of satisfaction in a company. Survey also indicate specific areas of satisfaction or dissatisfaction (as with employee service) in other words, a survey tells how employees tell about their jobs, what part of their jobs these feelings are for used on which departments are, particularly affected, and whose feelings are involved (for example supervisors, employees staff specialists). The survey is a powerful diagnostic instrument for assessing employee problems.

2) Improve communications is another benefit of he surveys communications flows in all directory a people plan the survey talk, and discuss its results, particularly beneficial to the company is the parade communication when employees are encouraged to comment about what they really have in their minds.

3) An unexpected benefit from job satisfaction surveys in improved attitudes for some employees, the survey is a safety value, an emotional release, a chance to get things off their chest for others, the survey is tangible expression of managements interest in employee

welfare, which gives employees a reason to feed better to wards management.

4) The Employee satisfaction survey can help discover the causes of indirect productivity problems, such as absenteeism turnover are highly conflated with job satisfaction. It also noted that these in turn affect productivity it night appropriately turn to job satisfaction survey to diagnose the cause. The cause could be low pay back of promotional opportunities, unchallenging jobs, unjust treatment, and the like with out proper surveys there could be random guessing on the part of management both to get a letter, handle on was employees are lagging and to plan better solutions to problems.

5) Another benefit of satisfaction survey as that help management to assess training need usually employees are given an opportunity to report how they feel the supervisor performs action parts of jobs such as delegating work and giving adequate job instruction. Since employees experience these supervisory acts, their perceptions may provide useful data about the training of their supervisors.

CONSEQUENCES SEEN THROUGH EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

Of all the behaviors employee satisfaction or dissatisfaction and effect, there in none so important to managers as performance. First the relationship bet wean job satisfaction and job performance is weak other factors besides and job satisfaction for instance the condition of the work equipment or the workers much a person can produce that his or hire job satisfaction does second there is substantial evidence to suggest that job performance leads to job satisfaction rather than vice versa employees who perform well should receive both more intrinsic rewards and more extrinsic rewards as result of their efforts. As result of these rewards, the best performance will also be most satisfied workers.

TURNOVER:

The relationship between job satisfaction and turnover is strong. Organizational with the lowest average satisfaction levels tend to have the highest turnover rates.

ABSENTEEISM:

Employee satisfaction is highly related to absenteeism in work units where job satisfaction are likely to expert the high level of effort necessary to get to work workers who are dissatisfied are more likely to take “Mental health”.

EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY:

According to the National Business Research Institute (NBRI), satisfaction surveys are an effective way to measure how happy employees are at work. These surveys, which are presented in a questionnaire format, can gauge whether employee morale is high or low based on how employees answer the questions. The NBRI explains that employers use information provided by satisfaction surveys to evaluate what employee motivation is like, whether they are satisfied with their jobs, what the organization's weaknesses are and whether employees feel loyal and committed to their company.

Employee satisfaction surveys give staff the chance to communicate openly and honestly about their perception of the health of the organization. When employees can hide behind an anonymous question sheet, such as a satisfaction survey, they are more inclined to be candid.

METHODS OF EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY:

Employee satisfaction survey can be measured by methods as follows:

1. Job Descriptive Index (JDI)

Job Descriptive Index is a scale used to measure five major factors associated with job satisfaction: Work itself, Supervision, Pay, Promotion, Co-workers. The JDI was first introduced in 1969 and since then has been used by over 1,000 organizations in many sectors.

2. Job in General Scale (JIG)

Job In General Scale is a method of employee satisfaction and developed as a global measure of job satisfaction.

JIG is similar to JDI, it introduced 1969 by Smith, Kendall, & Hulin, was modified in 1985 by the JDI Research Group.

3. Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ)

The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) is designed to measure an employee’s satisfaction with particular job.

Method includes 100 items measuring 20 facets of job satisfaction.

There are three version are available: two long forms (1977 version and 1967 version) and a short form.

4. Satisfied / dissatisfied method

This method questions like:

What is good thing in the company? What is not good one in the company?

This method is suitable for “emergency events” and result is needed in a short time.

5. Interview method

This method is used for:

Review all data collected from other method. Review key person.

Determining the need to survey.

Selling the survey to management.

Determining what to ask.

Selecting the methodology.

When to require questions.

STEPS IN EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY PROCESS:

Marketing the survey.

Proofing and Testing.

Interpreting the results.

Sharing the results.

Acting on the results.

Inviting the employees.

Selecting the norms to use

When to repeat the survey.

DETERMINING THE NEED TO CONDUCT AN EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

This is a fairly simple tip. There are two questions to ask your self.

1. Do you have employees?

2. Do you know how they feel about their jobs and their work environments?

If the answer to the first question is yes and the answer to the second question is no, you need to conduct an employee satisfaction survey, even if you have only a few employees and gather the information through informal discussions.

The urgency of the matter is another thing entirely. The need to survey is greater when one or more of the following factors are present.

1. Rapidly growing organization. When an organization is growing quickly, it is critical to find out how employees feel about their jobs, the organization, and their fit and future within it.

2. High or growing turnover rate. While some industries have a naturally high turnover, growing turnover is a problem for any organization. If your absolute level of turnover exceeds the industry average, you have a problem that an employee satisfaction survey is the first step to solving.

3. Excessive rumors. A strong rumor mill is symptomatic of other problems in the organization. These can include communications, trust, and fear. Only a survey can uncover the extent to which any of these issues exists.

4. Planned or recent organizational changes, including change of leadership. Change can be difficult for many people. If not handled properly, productivity and profits can decline.

5. Highly competitive industry. In a highly competitive industry, turnover minimization and productivity and creativity maximization are keys to success. Staying in touch with employees is necessary to facilitate continued competitiveness.

6. Contemplated changes in pay and benefits. You must know what needs to be "fixed" and how much "fixing" it needs to maximize return on invested money and people resources.

At first glance, this may look like a daunting process, but it isn't. It actually takes only a few weeks from start to finish. Committees, however, can slow the process considerably, and in some cases result in poor decisions.

SELLING THE SURVEY TO MANAGEMENT

It is common for one farsighted person in an organization to realize the need for an employee satisfaction survey. The task then becomes convincing critical decision makers of the need for such a survey. If the survey is unbudgeted, the task may seem formidable - but it is not.

In the absence of information about how employees view the workplace, decisions affecting productivity, morale, turnover, pay, and benefits costs are made in an information vacuum. Money and resources directed toward items that don't need improvement (or, worse yet, result in decline) in these items are essentially wasted. If a company were to focus resources on improving a particular benefit when the real need employees have is more training and better communication, the end result would be a more costly benefits program than necessary and continued employee frustration.

One client of ours reduced turnover in the organization from more than 50% to less than 30% after acting on the survey results we provided. Their estimated annual cost savings are $2 million per year. Their investment? Approximately $10,000. The survey paid for itself 200 times over.

Estimates of how much is saved by reducing turnover vary depending upon the amount of training needed for someone to reach full productivity.

Organizations with more highly-skilled workforces will realize the greatest cost savings and increases in productivity. Harvard Business Review reports that a 5% decrease in retention results in a 10% decline in costs and a productivity boost of between 25% and 65%.

The above represent the "hard" benefits. There also are "soft" benefits, which are somewhat more difficult to quantify. Employees appreciate being asked for their opinions, and appreciate it all the more when survey results are acted upon. When changes are made that make employees feel better about coming to work, several benefits, aside from decreased turnover, can result. These include:

More energetic employees,

Increased productivity, as happier employees will tend to "go the extra mile,"

Improved teamwork, as employees get to know each other better (since they are staying longer),

Higher quality products and services, due to a more competent, energized workforce and improved processes (processes identified in need of improvement in the survey),

More satisfied customers, due to the higher quality products, services, and service levels provided by the energized workforce.

Advances in technology have made it possible for management to act on survey results in a very timely manner. It is common for our clients to have survey results, (including an analysis of strengths and weaknesses, and recommendations), in hand within four weeks after contacting us.

DETERMINING WHAT TO ASK IN AN EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

This is a much simpler process than it used to be just a few years ago. The old model was to have a consultant visit your physical location, interview

employees for several days or weeks, and create a questionnaire. This approach had many drawbacks; among them:

It was time consuming,

It was expensive,

Although many of the same issues were addressed in questionnaires for different clients, inconsistency in question wording made normative comparisons nearly impossible.

Our approach both simplifies and improves this old process. We developed a base questionnaire containing core questions necessary for substantially all employers; questions addressing issues such as supervisor fairness, corporate communication, and physical work environment. Starting with this core document, we customize the questionnaire to fit it to the particular needs of the client, adding and deleting items as appropriate. Periodically, we review recent projects to see whether any of the custom items merit inclusion into the base questionnaire and whether any of the standard questions can be dropped (based on low importance, lack of differentiation between scores, etc.). This enables all clients to benefit from the creativity that has gone into other questionnaires, and makes possible the establishment of normative results against which to benchmark individual organizational results.

To determine what customization is required, we ask questions of the key client contact (and of others, as the contact deems necessary) during telephone conversations. These questions include:

What is the reason for conducting the survey at this time?

What hypotheses do the contact have about what is working well in the organization and what is not?

What rumors are in the rumor mill?

Are there any special concerns this business has because of the line of work? (Safety, ethics, quality, etc.)

What is the corporate mission statement?

Are there any prior employee satisfaction survey results? If so, can we review them?

What benefits are included in the benefits package?

We then craft a first draft of the questionnaire for the client's review. We exchange drafts via email until the client is happy with the document.

Some clients bring question wordings of their own to the survey process. We review these and suggest any wording changes we feel are appropriate.

The entire process usually takes a few days. It can take just a day or two for an organization with 200 or fewer employees, especially if the CEO is directly involved. It can take longer if the organization is either very large, has a culture of risk aversion, is highly political, or if a committee is involved in the process.

Larger organizations can expedite the process if they have a comprehensive list of departments and employee counts readily available. Much of the effort in questionnaire design when a few thousand or more people are employed by an organization goes into the layout of the department question, making sure there are no ambiguous department descriptions and that all departments are included.

The process, though simplified from the olden days, may sound daunting. However, it actually works quite well, and our clients always are pleased with the resulting questionnaire, the speed with which it is assembled, and with its ability to uncover the key issues in need of improvement.

SELECTING THE METHODOLOGY FOR YOUR EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

There are two primary methodologies for conduction employee satisfaction surveys -- Internet and paper-and-pencil. The choice of methodology should be based on what is best for the respondents -- best in terms of convenience, ease of use, trust in the method. There is little difference in price between either method until the sample size numbers in the thousands, in which case Internet is more cost effective.

If all employees or substantially all employees have access to the Internet from work, Internet is our recommended methodology. It generally results in a higher response rate and is faster than paper-and-pencil. It also give a bit more control in terms of how the questions are presented and gives the ability to require that certain questions must be answered. We have a secure server, so there is no issue with regard to confidentiality of sending results when an Internet survey is done with us.

If only a small percentage of employees have Internet access from work, we recommend using the traditional paper-and-pencil methodology. Even if cost savings could be realized by forcing employees to a central location to complete the survey, it is better to use paper-and-pencil in this circumstance to avoid user errors caused by a lack of familiarity with the Internet medium on the part of some users.

In some cases, it is appropriate to mix methodologies. This is the preferred approach when there are large contingents of employees with Internet access and large contingents without. The mixed method generally will yield a higher response rate than will the paper-and-pencil method.

WHEN TO REQUIRE QUESTIONS IN AN EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

One of the advantages of conducting a survey via the Internet is that you can require that certain questions be answered. There is an inclination upon the part of some clients to, when they realize this is possible, want to make every question required. However, we don't recommend this.

There are a number of reasons employees do not answer particular questions. These include:

1. They don't feel qualified to answer, 2. They are afraid to answer, lest someone at the company find out how

they responded. 3. They are apathetic about the issue being raised in the question. 4. They forget to answer.

Let's address these issues one at a time.

If employees don't feel qualified to answer, their answers may well be uniformed guesses. Such guesses only serve to muddy the data, making insightful analysis more difficult.

If employees are afraid to answer, but are required to do so, they may intentionally select an answer which does not reflect their real feelings. This will result in findings that do not represent the true feelings of a subset of the subject population.

If employees are apathetic about the issue being raised, they may answer randomly if an answer is required. This also serves to muddy the data.

The fourth issue to be addressed is that of employees who forget to answer a particular question. This rarely occurs with regard to the ratings scale questions in an employee satisfaction survey. The lion's share of scale questions are answered by 97% to 100% of the employee base. The main exception to this is the overall satisfaction question, which 5% to 10% of employees typically forget to answer if not so required. It is probable that most leave it blank until they have completed the remainder of the questionnaire, meaning to review their responses before reaching a decision on the question, and they simply forget to go back and complete it. Consequently, we always require the overall satisfaction question in an online employee satisfaction questionnaire.

Another question employees often do not answer is the one in which they are asked to indicate their department. This is not a case of forgetfulness - it is a conscious effort upon the part of some employees to avoid being identified. We, upon consulting with the client, sometimes require that this question be answered. When we do, we recommend that the client remove as many of the other demographic questions as possible to mitigate the fears employees have that they will be identified.

The remaining demographic questions often are not completed by many (10% or so) employees. We usually do not require that these questions be answered. (In fact, we cannot recall making them required in any survey.) It is more important to know the department in which an employee resides than it is to know their age, sex, income, etc.

We have not yet discussed one other possible impact of requiring that questions be answered - that of respondent frustration. When employees are repeatedly sent back to the questionnaire to complete answers, some will get upset. Some may respond randomly, and some may just give up. To minimize respondent frustration, whenever a question is required, we state this in bold red type and remind employees of which questions are required in text immediately preceding the "submit" button.

PROOFING AND TESTING THE EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

In the first part of this stage, both we and the client proof the questionnaire (whether paper or Internet). This is not just a check for misspelled words - we are looking for proper skip patterns, question numbering, grammar, and format.

Once proofing has been completed for a paper-and-pencil survey, the questionnaire goes straight to the printer. Internet Surveys, however, still need to be programmed and tested.

After programming, we conduct a series of tests to ensure that the questionnaire is working properly and that it is populating the correct file. We like to allow one day for this.

Once the questionnaire has been completely tested, the next step is - MORE TESTING.

One of the biggest potential GOTCHAS for an Internet survey is the email invitation. In most cases, the employer (our client) sends the email invitation to employees. It is critical that the link properly work. Just because the link seems to have the proper URL, it is no guarantee that it will link to the correct URL. There could be a very minor typo, or there could be underlying code that does not match the wording of the URL. the only way to make certain that the proper url is being referenced is to actually send the email to someone and click on the link. We like to review each invitation email a client plans on sending before it is sent.

If changes are made to an Internet questionnaire (other than typographical errors and minor cosmetic adjustments), the survey will have to be retested.

MARKETING YOUR EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

Your employee satisfaction survey should be treated as seriously as would any of your products or services. It must be of high quality, and it must be marketed correctly. This tip discusses the marketing aspect of the process.

As in every marketing campaign, several things are necessary. Among these are:

Determining the target audience,

Creating awareness of the product or service,

Communicating the benefits of the product or service,

Letting people know how to obtain the product or service.

Before you even begin, you will need to have appointed someone to manage the communication process. This often is the project manager for the entire program, but it can be a different individual.

Determining the Target Audience

There really are two target audiences for your Employee Satisfaction Survey Marketing Campaign.

Employees,

Managers of employees.

The reason for employees being a target is self-evident. Managers also are a necessary target -- their support is essential in the communication and facilitation of the employee satisfaction survey program. A manager can make or break response rate in his/her area.

Creating Awareness

Two to three weeks before the survey invitation goes out, you should begin creating awareness of it.

Step 1. Communicate to Senior Managers the importance of participation, the confidential nature of the survey, and that it is a priority for the top manager(s) of the company.

Step 2. Senior managers communicate to the remaining managers in the organization.

Step 3. Begin disseminating information about the survey to employees via the most effective means available. The method you use should depend upon how you communicate important matters to the entire employee base. Multiple methods should be used if possible. Consider email, memorandums, newsletters and bulletin boards. Draft and disseminate a Q & A sheet to all managers for use in employee meetings.

All managers should schedule meetings with the employees immediately reporting to them to discuss the survey process.

COMMUNICATING THE BENEFITS OF THE EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY In all pre-survey communications, including meetings with employees, the following should be addressed.

The importance of responding. "We can't fix things if you don't tell us what is broken."

The confidentiality and anonymity of the process and the data. How the results will be disseminated to employees. How the information will be used. Letting People Know How to Obtain the Product (the Survey)

In all pre-survey communications, the timeline for participating needs to be communicated. People need to be told that they can complete the survey during work hours. (Managers need to understand that their support is needed in letting people complete the survey during work hours.)

The actual invitation, which can be in email, letter, or memorandum form, should reiterate all of the items in these last two sections, as well as outlining the start and end dates of the survey. The invitation should come from a person high in management, the CEO or person in charge of the local operation, if possible. Details of the invitation are included Inviting the Employees.

INVITING THE EMPLOYEES TO YOUR EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

The invitation to employees to participate in the survey can be done via either email or memorandum.

In both cases, certain key information must be communicated.

What is happening. E.g., "We are conducting an employee satisfaction survey."

Why it is happening. E.g., ". . . as our changes and faces new challenges, it becomes increasingly important to gauge the level of satisfaction of our employees."

The survey is anonymous and confidential. Assure employees that their responses will be held in the strictest confidence. If using an outside supplier, mention that only the supplier will see the completed responses.

How the results will be used. Anything you can share with employees in this regard will make it more likely that people will respond.

How long the survey will take to complete. Most surveys of this type, if properly designed, will take only 15 or 20 minutes to complete. If this is the case with your survey, be sure to mention it.

Give a deadline.

Thank the employees for their time.

If the invitation is an email for an Internet survey, the email should contain the URL. Care must be taken to ensure that the URL is a hot link (employees should simply be able to click on the link to go to the survey) and that the link actually leads people to the correct URL. The message should appear within the text of the email itself, rather than in an attachment.

If the invitation is a memorandum inviting people to participate in a paper-and-pencil survey, the questionnaire and a return envelope should accompany it. The memorandum should tell people how to return their completed questionnaires.

Optional information to consider including in the invitation:

Tell people the survey can be completed on company time

If there is some sort of group incentive for a high response rate, mention what it is.

If it is an Internet survey and your research supplier is using a secure server, mention this.

To maximize response rate, the invitation should come from within the organization itself, and should be signed by a senior manager (the CEO if possible). For a paper-and-pencil survey, the questionnaire packet should be delivered to people at their places of work instead of mailing it to their homes.

We keep on file samples of successful invitations (with the company names removed, of course), and make these available to clients.

OBTAINING A HIGH RESPONSE RATE IN YOUR EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

Here are the steps to take to obtain a high response rate.

Market the employee satisfaction survey to the employees and managers before the survey begins.

Make it clear that the survey can be completed on company time, and make sure all supervisors support this. (We have seen complaints in employee comments when this is promised but one or more supervisors do not support it.)

Make sure employees understand their responses will be confidential. Support your statements to the best extent possible, e.g., "Your questionnaires will be received directly by the research firm doing the tabulations. Nobody in our organization will see your ratings and comments."

Let employees know how many people have responded at various points in time.

Establish an overall response rate goal and give all employees "something extra" if the goal is reached.

Send reminder messages.

When the results come in, let the employees know what they were. This will help the next survey's response rate.

Act on the results. This also will help the next survey's response rate.

SELECTING THE NORMS TO USE IN YOUR EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

In the value of normative data in employee survey analysis, we discussed how norms add significant value to the interpretation of results. The question often comes up - "against what types of organizations should I compare my organization?" For most of our clients, the entire normative database is the most appropriate base to use for comparison. The reasons for this are as follows.

In many industries, employees jump between industries. Thus, you compete for employees with industries outside your own. As such, you need to know how your organization compares with the real competition for your "people" resources.

In most cases, the differences between industries are slight in terms of how employees feel about where they work. For example, Table 1 contains the scores for one attribute, "my supervisor treats me fairly," for three industries and for the database as a whole.

Using too small a small subset of a normative database makes it more difficult to determine whether observed differences to the norm are statistically significant. This causes uncertainty with regard to how different your organizations results really are, and can lead to erroneous decision making if the user ignores any lack of statistically significant differences.

As is the case in much of life, there are exceptions. People in the healthcare industry tend to stay in the industry and the results do tend to differ slightly

from those of employers as a whole. Also, we know that employees of very small organizations tend to be happier than employees of very large organizations.

When a client does not want to compare against the entire normative database, we try to strike a sense of balance between using organizations substantially identical to the one for which we are conducting the employee satisfaction survey and benefiting from the large sample sizes associated with using the entire database. Sometimes this means eliminating organizations above or below a certain size or organizations in particular industries from the database against which we compare the results.

In some instances, it is appropriate to only compare against organizations in the same industry as the client. Fortunately, we have a large enough sample to do this for many industries, including, but not limited to, healthcare, high technology, and manufacturing.

Some of our clients have very high aspirations and levels of employee satisfaction. For such clients, it can be appropriate to "set the bar high" by comparing against only the top 10% or 20% of all organizations (based on overall satisfaction with an organization as a place to work).

The most important thing to remember is that norms add an extra layer of analytical capability and value to the employee satisfaction survey process.

INTERPRETING THE RESULTS OF YOUR EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

It is astounding how much "data" can be created by a survey. Each scale question has multiple possible answers, each of which must be reported along with each item's average score; there are results for various subgroups, and there is statistical analysis. The data must first be packaged into information (via proper presentation of tables, graphs, and statistical analysis). Then, it must be properly interpreted. Different analysts may take different approaches. Here is one approach.

1. Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses. In this step, we look at the intra-survey strengths and weaknesses, i.e., how the items in the survey compare to each other, and the extra-survey strengths and weaknesses, i.e., how the results compare to other results from similar surveys (norms). This can be done on the attribute (individual question) level as well as on the section (groups of questions) level.

2. Look for Patterns. Typically, common themes will emerge. For example, it is common to find problems in inter-departmental communication when teamwork scores are low. These patterns give clues to the underlying circumstances in existence at the organization.

3. Leverage Analysis. Limited company resources require companies to be able to quickly identify those areas that are most important (leverageable) to its employees. Leverage analysis provides a way of selecting areas to focus on, by calculating each area's leverage on a "bottom line" measure - overall satisfaction. The high-priority targets identified by quadrant analysis (see chart below) are those areas which meet two criteria:

1. They need improvement, and

2. Their improvement will strongly leverage the bottom line - overall satisfaction.

We look at the statistical relationship between each attribute measured and overall satisfaction. Items with high leverage (correlation to overall satisfaction) will have more impact on satisfaction than will items with low leverage. By plotting the leverage (correlation) scores and the performance scores (the percentages or average scores for each attribute) in two-dimensional space, it becomes apparent which items need immediate attention.

SHARING THE RESULTS OF AN EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

It is critical to share results in a timely manner for at least two reasons:

1. Everyone must know where the organization as a whole and their individual areas stand if you are going to fully leverage the creativity and efforts of the employee base.

2. Employees need to know that the time they spent in completing the survey was worthwhile.

Each organization has its own information-sharing culture in place. While in some cases, particularly if the survey showed communication to be a problem, the process will need some adjustment, we recognize that each organization will have an approach to information dissemination that it typically leverages. As such, modifications to our recommended approach may be in order to account for an organization's information-sharing culture.

The Basic Principles of Sharing Employee Satisfaction Survey Results

1. Be honest. An organization must be willing to share both its strengths and its areas in need of improvement. Employees will see through attempts to hide or "spin" information.

2. Be timely. The sooner you release results, the sooner the organization can begin to move toward positive change.

3. Share appropriate information at each level. Senior management will need encapsulated results and access to detailed results for the organization as a whole and differences between divisions/departments. Division managers will need to know how their division compares to the organization as a whole and how departments in the division compare to each other. Department managers will need to know how their results compare to the organization as a whole and to the division to which they belong.

4. Don't embarrass people in front of their peers. Teamwork and morale can be harmed if, for example, a division manager shows all department scores to the department managers in a group setting. Rather than pointing out low-scoring departments to all department managers, let all department managers know how they fared compared to other departments via one-on-one meetings.

5. Discuss what happens next. After the results have bee presented, let the audience know what steps will be taken to improve those items in need of improvement.

6. Respect confidentiality. Don't present information that would make people feel that their responses are not confidential. For example, it would not be appropriate for anyone in the organization to have access to comments for a small department, since some people may be able to accurately guess who made what comment. Your research supplier should assist in this by not providing information that could breach, or could be perceived to breach, confidentiality.

Process Considerations

1. Have a plan in place to disseminate information before the survey has been completed.

2. The CEO/president should be briefed by the internal project manager and/or the research supplier.

3. The CEO/president should share the results with division managers. Overall results should be shared in a group setting. Individual results should be shared in one-on-one meetings.

4. Division managers should share results with department managers in a similar manner to the approach the CEO/president took with them.

5. Key findings and implications should be highlighted in each presentation. Detailed results also should be presented. However, take

care to avoid drowning people in information. This can be done by relying more heavily on graphics than on detailed tables to communicate.

6. Give employees an overview of overall results through the best means possible. For some organizations, this will be in a group setting. For others, it will be via email, Intranet, or newsletter. Consider using multiple methods.

7. Department managers should share departmental results with employees in a group meeting. It may be helpful to have an HR manager assist in the presentation. If HR managers will be part of this process, planning ahead will help the meetings to proceed smoothly and take place in a timely manner.

8. In all communications, make sure the communication is "two way." Questions should be encouraged.

ACTING ON THE RESULTS OF AN EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

Your company has committed the resources to survey its employees, the employees were enthusiastic about participating and now you have the survey results in your hand. What do you do with the survey data? What are the next steps in improving the satisfaction of your employees? How should the results be distributed? How do you identify the most important areas to focus on? Once the areas are identified, what's the most effective method of realizing improvements in those areas?

While the answers to many of these questions are largely the product of a company's organizational culture, it's crucial that the employees be actively involved in the post survey phase if an organization is to attain significant improvements in employee satisfaction with minimal resources.

Distribution of Survey Results

From the beginning, senior executives must determine who gets what type of report. Should department managers receive reports from other departments? Are divisional reports needed and who should receive them? Should supervisors receive specific reports and line managers receive reports? Who should review employee comments? See sharing the results for more information on this.

Once the survey results are distributed, an action plan must be created to decide which areas are most important to the employees and how best to improve those areas.

COMMUNICATE SURVEY RESULTS AND ACTION PLANS TO YOUR EMPLOYEES

One of the biggest mistakes organizations can make in the survey process is to fail to communicate to everyone the findings of the survey and the plans created to improve weak areas. While we do not suggest distribution of the complete survey report to everyone, we do recommend an open and honest discourse of both organizational strengths and areas for improvement at the department level if possible. Along with the survey findings, dialogue of what action the company plans to take to address those organizational weaknesses also must occur.

Admittedly, the method of company communication and the content of those messages are again, influenced by the company's culture. Failing to reveal the results of the survey and to take action to correct shortcomings can prove detrimental to company satisfaction. In fact, companies are better off not surveying at all if they don't plan to take action. Inaction by company decision makers results in an almost immediate decline of employee morale and a general feeling of apathy. Furthermore, failing to act can severely impact future attempts to gauge the satisfaction of your employees in the future. It's been our experience, however, that those organizations that solicit input from its employees both in terms of deciding which areas to

focus on and creating novel approaches to deal with those areas are the ones that achieve the greatest amount of improvement in the shortest amount of time with minimal resources.

DEVELOP ACTION PLANS TO IMPROVE EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

Once the survey results have been distributed and critical areas identified, organizations must decide upon the most effective means to improve those items. Some executives charge the individual department managers with creating and implementing improvement processes. Other more culturally dynamic organizations involve employee in the process by making them part of task forces and focus groups to better understand and act upon the survey findings. Effective use of employee groups creates new levels of employee trust and organizational commitment. In addition, focus groups facilitate the implementation of meaningful changes, which have a real impact on employee satisfaction. A recent client in the pharmaceutical industry which surveys its employees semi-annually has realized valuable gains in employee satisfaction using focus groups, decreasing employee turnover by nearly 50% in a 2-year period. Whichever method is used, there are three keys to success:

1. Goals and incentive setting at the lowest possible organizational level,

2. Periodic follow through by senior executives to ensure improvement plans are effectively created and implemented,

3. Rapid deployment.

Also, don't forget to have a plan in place to bring new managers up to speed on the survey findings and resulting action plans.

WHEN TO REPEAT THE EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEY

We often hear the question, "how often should I conduct an employee satisfaction survey?" Our recommendation is once a year for most organizations.

Depending upon methodology and the size of the organization being measured, it usually takes three to four weeks from the implementation of a survey until the issuance of the final report and departmental reports. (It can be done more quickly, especially if the Internet is used and the organizational culture encourages rapid response.) If a good post-survey communication plan is in place, results should be disseminated throughout the organization in approximately two weeks. The time it takes to design action plans will vary from organization to organization, but two to four weeks following the dissemination of results throughout the organization is a good target. This means that an organization can begin to make progress toward improving the items found in need of improvement within two to three months following the commission of the survey. This leaves at least nine months for improvement to take hold.

Nine months is a sufficient time for improvement to be seen. If the efforts are effective, a survey one year after the prior survey will show that efforts to improve have been successful. If the efforts are not effective, conducting another one year after the previous one will give the organization a chance to alter course before waiting two years to do so.

There are instances when an organization might choose to repeat at time intervals other than one year. If an organization's culture is such that results can be disseminated and acted upon more quickly than the schedule outlined above, a six-month schedule can be considered. However, this is too quick for most organizations, as it does not give sufficient time for improvement before the next measurement. It would be good for us monetarily if all clients went to a six-month timeframe, but we do not recommend this in the lion's share of circumstances because we feel most clients will not receive sufficient value from such an aggressive schedule.

An eighteen-month interval may be appropriate in an organization that is slow to act on the survey results. If six or eight months (or more!) go by before improvement efforts begin, it will be disheartening to see that little change has taken place after one year. This does beg the question, however -- "is there something in the processes and culture of the organization that should be improved if it takes this long to implement change?" In this day and age, competition is fierce and organizations need to be nimble.

A two-year interval simply is too long for several reasons.

It is such a long length of time that an organization could actually improve in targeted areas, and then relapse. The subsequent survey then might show no change, when in fact two changes had taken place -- one positive and one negative. In such a circumstance, the erroneous conclusion might be that the efforts to change had no impact.

It can be difficult for an organization to maintain focus for two years. Other competing priorities will inevitably arise, and it will be easy for some people to shelve, at least mentally, employee satisfaction improvement programs when the next measurement is in the distant future.

People move around. In two years you might expect to have many new people and many people in new positions. The people responsible for implementing change may no longer be in their old positions. The new people may be unaware of how they should be contributing to the organization's planned changes which resulted from the previous employee satisfaction survey.

We recognize that, even though employee satisfaction surveys can pay for themselves, it can be difficult for some organizations to set aside the funds needed to complete a program annually. Our recommendation in such circumstances is to consider a "pulsed" approach, where in the first year and

every other report the organization goes with our (or the equivalent of our) Gold program (with full written analysis), and in the off years the organization goes with a Silver program (where there is no written analysis, but there are complete charts and graphs at all appropriate levels). This saves money, while still enabling an organization to reap the benefits that come with an annual employee satisfaction measurement program.